Cocka-potchke is the phrase my mom used when she would throw together a meal using whatever was on hand. I thought it was a Yiddish phrase that basically meant that, until I went to confirm its spelling and realized my mom made it up. Potchke is real - it means to tinker playfully in the kithcen - but cocka came out of nowhere. Since my mother isn’t one to take things too seriously, and because I don’t want these recipes to be too serious, the word sticks.

These recipes are for the kind of food you can’t screw up. My method of cooking is to try multiple recipes of the same dish so I get what they’re trying to do, then simplify them into an inexact recipe reduced to the least number of steps needed to succeed. You need to know how to chop things (not precisely), cook things on the stovetop and put things in the oven. And I have just one tip - by pre-peeled garlic cloves. Just trust me on that.